Katja Hoyer on Weimar, the GDR, and the German Character (Ep. 279)

There is a line of thinking that says that this was instilled in generations of Germans already at that point, without any break.

有一种观点认为，这一点在那时就已经被灌输给几代德国人，没有任何中断。

I think also if you look more widely at German culture, there’s a really strong adherence to rules and order and discipline.

我还认为，如果你更广泛地审视德国文化，就会发现德国文化对规则、秩序和纪律的遵守非常严格。

That sounds like a bit of a cliché, but I think there’s something to that.

这听起来有点陈词滥调，但我认为这是有道理的。

Yes, you’re right.

是的，你说得对。

When I talk to people from other former satellite states, people from the Soviet Union or from Poland or from Hungary, they always said that there was the stereotype about East Germans being the most hardcore communist state, because there wasn’t a layer underneath the state where people just went on and did their own thing.

当我与来自其他前卫星国家、来自苏联、波兰或匈牙利的人交谈时，他们总是说，人们普遍认为东德是最铁杆的共产主义国家，因为在国家下面没有一层人可以继续做自己的事情。

There’s a long tradition of that, for example, in Poland, where they have this conspiratia concept, where basically society has another layer underneath the state, and that just doesn’t exist in Germany.

这有一个悠久的传统，例如，在波兰，他们有这种阴谋概念，基本上社会在国家之下还有另一层，而这在德国并不存在。

The moment you tried to diverge from the path that was dictated to you, that’s when you really, very quickly discovered that you did live in a dictatorship and there wasn’t a way out of that.

当你试图偏离指定的道路的那一刻，你很快就会发现，你确实生活在一个独裁统治下，而且没有任何出路。

The Stasi, the secret police in particular, had means of making your life absolute hell.

斯塔西，特别是秘密警察，有办法让你的生活变得绝对地狱。

There was even a concept they called this Zersetzung, which means to almost dissolve your life, where they would really attack even your social structures, your relationships, and everything.

他们甚至有一个概念，称为Zersetzung，意思是几乎溶解你的生活，他们甚至会真正攻击你的社会结构、你的人际关系和一切。

Depending on who you ask, basically, you get very different stories about what it was like to live there, even right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

基本上，根据你问的是谁，你会得到关于在那里生活的不同故事，甚至直到柏林墙倒塌。

Nonetheless, you wouldn’t have gone, say, to the Baltic Sea to see people on holiday, or to a factory and see people working in there with their colleagues, or to observe a football match or whatever.

尽管如此，你不会去波罗的海看人们度假，或者去工厂看人们与同事一起工作，或者观看足球比赛或其他什么。

These day-to-day things that made people’s lives—filled them basically with life, with friendship, with colleagues, and so on.

这些日常事物构成了人们的生活——基本上让他们充满了生活、友谊、同事等等。

I think there is a bit more nuance than that to it.

我认为还有一些细微差别。

On East German artistic creations

论东德艺术创作

I would say, overall, the corpus of literature is well worth looking at because people lived in a dictatorship in a different world and tried to find ways of expressing that, even though the censorship was in place.

我想说，总的来说，文学语料库非常值得一看，因为人们生活在不同世界的独裁统治下，并试图找到表达这一点的方式，即使审查制度已经到位。

I would say rather than reading one specific work, to try and read maybe four or five different things and get a cross-section of what was going on at the time.

我想说，与其阅读一本具体的著作，不如尝试阅读四到五本不同的书，并对当时发生的事情有一个横断面的了解。

Christa Wolf, being one of them, although she’s a difficult read as well, it’s not something to easily get through.

克里斯塔·沃尔夫（Christa Wolf）就是其中之一，虽然她也很难读，但并不是一件容易读懂的事情。

Brigitte Reimann is a very good read, I find.

我发现布丽吉特·雷曼（Brigitte Reimann）读得非常好。

Her books, again, they are openly critical of the state, but at the same time, she was also somebody who did well for herself in the GDR.

她的书再次公开批评国家，但与此同时，她也是在东德为自己做事的人。

That nuance, again, is coming through quite well there.

再次，这种细微差别在那里得到了很好的体现。

They wanted reunification, but they were also worried about losing their entire way of life, the world around them, and especially that insecurity of not knowing what was coming next.

他们想要统一，但他们也担心失去整个生活方式、周围的世界，尤其是不知道接下来会发生什么的不安全感。

I think that really describes the zeitgeist of the era quite well.

我认为这确实很好地描述了那个时代的时代精神。

I think it’s done a decent job in encapsulating that.

我认为它在封装这一点方面做得很好。

That in itself set the economic parameters for some people to work relatively freely, particularly in theater.

这本身就为一些人相对自由地工作设定了经济参数，特别是在剧院。

You hear that a lot, that because of the amount of money that was spent by the state that that gave a degree of freedom.

你经常听到这样的说法，因为国家花费了大量的金钱才给予了一定程度的自由。

I also think just the sheer experience of living in a dictatorship, of being surrounded by the constraints of that, by having to work around censorship, you have to find quite clever ways of expressing yourself in a different way, I think, than people do in freer societies.

我还认为，生活在独裁统治下的纯粹经历，被独裁统治的限制所包围，必须绕过审查制度，我认为，你必须找到一种非常聪明的方式，以一种与自由社会中的人们不同的方式表达自己。

I don’t think it is surprising as such that you get a different type of creativity coming from those sorts of systems.

我认为从这些类型的系统中获得不同类型的创造力并不令人惊讶。

That stripping of clothes means stripping of class boundaries, of politics, of culture, in a way, and everyone looks and is the same.

在某种程度上，脱掉衣服意味着阶级界限、政治、文化的剥离，每个人看起来都是一样的。

I think that’s partially the appeal of that particularly there.

我认为这部分是它的吸引力，尤其是在那里。

On top of that, it’s just the pragmatic reason, but the Baltic Sea was in the East largely, most of it.

最重要的是，这只是务实的原因，但波罗的海大部分位于东部。

The nicer stretch of Germany’s coastline, just in terms of developing any beach culture, really, was in the former GDR.

事实上，就发展海滩文化而言，德国海岸线最好的一段是在前东德。

Therefore, you naturally have the landscape that lends itself to that.

因此，您自然会拥有适合于此的景观。

There’s a bit of that in the West as well.

西方也有一些这样的情况。

When you go to certain areas, say, for instance, the English Garden in Munich is quite famous even today.

当你去某些地区时，例如，慕尼黑的英国花园即使在今天也相当有名。

Sometimes you see people sunbathing in the nude or topless there because there are pockets of that, but it’s never that mass movement that it is in the East.

有时你会看到人们裸体或赤裸上身在那里晒日光浴，因为那里也有这样的地方，但这从来不是东方那样的群众运动。

I think that comes out of those two factors that I just explained.

我认为这是我刚才解释的两个因素造成的。

On Angela Merkel's East German background

论安吉拉·默克尔的东德背景

She tried to avoid that and was very conscious, I think, of not coming across like that.

她试图避免这种情况，而且我认为她非常有意识地避免给人留下这样的印象。

There was one speech, which I mentioned in the book as well, where, in 2021, it was her last big speech in office.

我在书中也提到了一次演讲，那是她在 2021 年任内的最后一次大型演讲。

She actually talked about her experiences in East Germany there and said people always described this as a dark past that she had to shrug off or get rid of, in a way, her time in the GDR.

她实际上谈到了她在东德的经历，并说人们总是将其描述为一段黑暗的过去，她必须耸耸肩或在某种程度上摆脱她在东德的时光。

She bristled against that and said, “Look, this was 35 years of my life.

她对此感到愤怒，并说道：“看，这就是我生命中的 35 年。

I had experience there.

我在那里有过经验。

It’s literally half of my life that you’re expecting me to forget or to somehow overcome.” I think it was there.

这实际上是我生命的一半，你希望我忘记或以某种方式克服。”我想它就在那里。

She always also claimed that this made it easier for her to deal with the Russians because she spoke Russian and had experienced the same system in her youth and knew what it was like.

她还总是声称，这让她更容易与俄罗斯人打交道，因为她会说俄语，并且在年轻时经历过同样的制度，知道那是什么样子。

There was always an argument there that she said, balancing out her very transatlantic outlook.

她说的总是有争论，平衡了她的跨大西洋观点。

She was a huge fan of German-American relations as well.

她也是德美关系的忠实粉丝。

Balancing that out with an eastern outlook, she said, was easier for her because of her background.

她说，由于她的背景，平衡这一点与东方观点对她来说更容易。

Lastly, if I may, I think the fact that she was the first female chancellor and to this date, the only one, that was easier for her because she’d already got used to working in a way.

最后，如果可以的话，我认为她是第一位女总理，也是迄今为止唯一一位女总理，这对她来说更容易，因为她已经习惯了以某种方式工作。

In East Germany, over 90 percent of women were in full-time employment, and they’d become a part of the workforce in a less obviously feminist way and a more obvious, normal, natural way.

在东德，超过 90% 的女性从事全职工作，她们以一种不那么明显的女权主义方式和一种更明显、正常、自然的方式成为劳动力的一部分。

Dealing with men in your work area, I think, was a more normal thing in the East than it was in the West at this point.

我认为，目前在东方，与工作区域的男性打交道比在西方更为正常。

For her to go into the still quite stuffy male environment in Bonn, in the West German capital, and deal with her new colleagues in politics, I think, was easier for her than it would have been for a woman for whom that hadn’t been already a normal way of working.

我认为，对于她来说，进入西德首都波恩仍然相当压抑的男性环境，并与政治上的新同事打交道，对她来说比对一个女性来说更容易，因为这对她来说还不是一种正常的工作方式。

On East German underrepresentation today

论当今东德代表性不足

This isn’t just a subjective feeling that East Germans have.

这不仅仅是东德人的主观感受。

They are genuinely not part of the conversation in proportion to the amount of people that they provide in society.

与他们为社会提供的人数相比，他们确实没有参与对话。

You were just told what to do, really, and then climbing a certain ladder that was provided for you, but you had no idea how to do these things yourself.

实际上，你只是被告知要做什么，然后爬上为你提供的某个梯子，但你不知道自己如何做这些事情。

That means that things like scholarships, you have no idea how they work.

这意味着像奖学金这样的东西，你不知道它们是如何运作的。

You don’t really sound and look like the people that you’re trying to impress.

你的声音和外表都不像你想要打动的人。

Effectively, other people get given the positions that you didn’t even know vie or compete for.

实际上，其他人得到了你甚至不知道竞争或竞争的职位。

I think that’s a more subtle way of thinking about it.

我认为这是一种更微妙的思考方式。

The other thing I would say is because of over 40 years of socialism, you have a very working-class-oriented culture.

我要说的另一件事是，由于40多年的社会主义，你们有一种非常以工人阶级为导向的文化。

People don’t have wealth built up.

人们没有积累财富。

All of these figures exist as well.

所有这些数字也都存在。

Basically, East Germans are a lot less economically secure.

基本上，东德人的经济保障要差得多。

As a result of that, you take fewer risks as well.

因此，您承担的风险也更少。

If you’re sitting there wondering, should I do a PhD or not, for example, and you think that’s three years of not really having an income, I don’t really know how to do that, and you haven’t got a family that can back you up, you haven’t got a house to live in, no matter what, because it doesn’t belong to you—those kinds of things also mean that people tend to take the safe option and go with the easy way forward with earning an income if there’s any doubt over that.

例如，如果你坐在那里想知道，我是否应该读博士，而你认为三年没有真正的收入，我真的不知道该怎么做，而且你没有一个可以支持你的家庭，你没有房子可以住，无论如何，因为它不属于你——这些事情也意味着，如果有任何疑问，人们倾向于采取安全的选择，并选择简单的方法来赚取收入。那个。

All of these things, I think class differences and so on—I don’t think people were aware of what that would do to society.

所有这些事情，我认为阶级差异等等——我认为人们没有意识到这会对社会产生什么影响。

I don’t think there’s a deliberate conspiracy to keep East Germans out as such.

我不认为存在故意将东德人拒之门外的阴谋。

I think it’s just a question of those hidden structures underneath society still being there.

我认为这只是社会底层那些隐藏结构仍然存在的问题。

On East Germans vs. West Germans

关于东德人与西德人

Whilst in the West, it’s a marker of your middle- or upper-class status.

在西方，这是中产阶级或上层阶级地位的标志。

If you can switch to high German when required in formal situations, that marks you out as somebody who’s well educated, well read, and so on.

如果你能在正式场合需要时改用高地德语，那就表明你是受过良好教育、博览群书等的人。

It’s seen as something that you have to learn, whilst in the East, we never did.

它被视为你必须学习的东西，而在东方，我们从未这样做过。

I found that out again the hard way when you go to university.

当你上大学时，我再次发现了这一点。

I had a really broad Berlin accent when I grew up.

我长大后有很重的柏林口音。

Going to university somewhere else, quite far away—I studied in Jena, which is about two, three hours away from Berlin—suddenly, you’ve got these Bavarian professors who think it’s hilarious that you speak in a Berlin accent.

去其他地方上大学，很远​​的地方——我在耶拿学习，距离柏林大约两三个小时——突然间，你会遇到这些巴伐利亚教授，他们认为你用柏林口音说话很搞笑。

That wouldn’t have happened to a West Berliner who might have been able to switch to high German more easily.

对于一个西柏林人来说，这种事就不会发生，因为他可能更容易改用高地德语。

These differences still exist.

这些差异仍然存在。

Growing up, my parents both worked.

在我的成长过程中，我的父母都工作。

That was quite unusual in West Germany, still, that the mothers worked when they had young children.

不过，这在西德还是很不寻常的，因为母亲们带着孩子还要工作。

You grow up in a different way.

你以不同的方式成长。

You come home from school when you’re six, seven, cook your own food, do your own homework, go shopping, take over responsibility, that kind of thing, earlier.

当你六、七岁的时候，你从学校回家，自己做饭，做自己的作业，去购物，承担责任，诸如此类的事情，要早一些。

Culturally, there’s a difference still between East and West for those sorts of reasons as well.

在文化上，由于这些原因，东西方之间仍然存在差异。

I could give you 100 other examples, but there are still differences between East and West Germans in those subtle ways.

我可以举出 100 个其他例子，但东德人和西德人之间在这些微妙的方面仍然存在差异。

That’s much higher than any other Germany that’s ever existed in terms of the Catholic proportion.

就天主教徒比例而言，这比历史上任何其他德国都高得多。

They were socially more conservative and placed emphasis on things like family values, raising children at home in quite a conservative way.

他们在社会上更加保守，重视家庭价值观等事情，以相当保守的方式在家抚养孩子。

My mom said in the ’90s when she went on a further education course in the West, and then she said in the evening, “I just got to call home quickly and make sure that my children are okay.” They said, “Well, how old are they?” She said, “Well, one of them is a baby.

我妈妈在90年代去西方继续深造时说过，然后她在晚上说，“我只是要赶紧打电话回家，确保我的孩子们没事。”他们说：“那么，他们多大了？”她说：“嗯，其中一个是婴儿。

The other one’s five or six.” That was me, the five, six-year-old.

另一个有五六岁。”那就是我，五六岁的孩子。

There were these old West German professors, and they all looked at her aghast, like, why are you here, hundreds of miles away from home, when you’ve got two small children at home?

那些西德的老教授们都惊愕地看着她，就像，你为什么在离家数百英里之外的地方，当你家里有两个孩子的时候？

What are you like?”

你是什​​么样的人？

This difference there, I think, partially comes out of this West German society being socially very conservative for a long time and led by conservative leaders for most of their time as well, until you get Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt in the ’70s as more left-leaning, more progressive leaders who break up these structures a little bit.

我认为，这种差异部分源于西德社会长期以来在社会上非常保守，并且大部分时间都由保守派领导人领导，直到 70 年代的威利·勃兰特和赫尔穆特·施密特成为更左倾、更进步的领导人，他们稍微打破了这些结构。

On Goethe and Weimar's cultural heritage

论歌德和魏玛的文化遗产

Then, if you’re in Weimar—I spent a lot of time there now researching for my latest book—you see the type of tourism is very different from other parts of Germany in that you do get a lot of people from West Germany there.

然后，如果你在魏玛——我现在花了很多时间在那里研究我的最新书——你会发现旅游业的类型与德国其他地区非常不同，因为那里确实有很多来自西德的人。

You can hear different accents.

你可以听到不同的口音。

You can hear people from Bavaria, Swabia, and from the Rhine region.

您可以听到来自巴伐利亚、施瓦本和莱茵河地区的人们的声音。

There is that tourism.

有这样的旅游业。

I think similar to Dresden as well, which has got a similar standing as an all-German culture place.

我认为德累斯顿也很相似，作为一个全德国文化的地方，德累斯顿也有类似的地位。

The same, I would say, applies to Weimar as well, where people still come to hail these literary heroes.

我想说，同样的情况也适用于魏玛，那里的人们仍然为这些文学英雄欢呼。

It’s not just Goethe.

不仅仅是歌德。

You’ve got Beethoven, Liszt, and Nietzsche.

你有贝多芬、李斯特和尼采。

Then it was also a royal residence of the dukes, basically, in different incarnations of it, because of Germany’s fragmented history.

由于德国支离破碎的历史，它基本上也是公爵的皇家住所，具有不同的化身。

Basically, it has a schloss—little palace—in Weimar and various gardens and pleasure gardens and that kind of thing as well, because it was always a royal residence town.

基本上，它在魏玛有一座城堡——小宫殿，还有各种花园和游乐花园之类的东西，因为它一直是皇家居住的城镇。

That gives the place the political importance as well over time, which means representative buildings are being built and so on.

随着时间的推移，这也赋予了这个地方政治重要性，这意味着正在建造具有代表性的建筑等等。

It becomes quite a prestigious place for that reason as well.

由于这个原因，它也成为一个相当有声望的地方。

When Goethe moved there, and then suddenly Goethe shot to fame as he did, he was the theater director there for a long time and then died in Weimar, it became a bit of a Goethe shrine.

当歌德搬到那里后，歌德突然声名鹊起，他在那里担任了很长一段时间的戏剧导演，然后去世于魏玛，这里变成了一个歌德圣地。

It elevated that even further, that status.

它进一步提升了这种地位。

Again, whichever incarnation of Germany you look at, it always ends up being pretty much right in the middle.

再说一次，无论你看到德国的哪一个化身，它最终总是处于中间位置。

It’s about halfway between Munich and Hamburg.

它大约位于慕尼黑和汉堡之间。

For that reason alone, it ended up being quite a popular place for people to go to visit, to meet up.

仅出于这个原因，它最终成为人们参观、聚会的热门场所。

Accumulatively, I would say that gave Weimar quite a large standing on the firmament of German culture.

总的来说，我想说这让魏玛在德国文化的天空中占据了相当大的地位。

There just wasn’t much along those lines in Weimar.

魏玛并没有太多类似的东西。

The time that I’m looking at in my book, between the two world wars, you have about 100 Jews in a town of about 35,000 people.

我在书中看到的那段时期，是在两次世界大战之间，一个大约有 35,000 人的小镇里有大约 100 名犹太人。

It’s a tiny population.

这是一个很小的人口。

They’re largely people like shopkeepers.

他们大多是像店主这样的人。

One runs a department store, one family in Weimar, that kind of thing.

一个人经营一家百货公司，一个人在魏玛，诸如此类。

It is a small town.

这是一个小镇。

That’s, I think, partially why that’s the case.

我认为，这就是造成这种情况的部分原因。

Then, of course, it was where the Weimar Republic was founded.

当然，这里就是魏玛共和国的建立地。

In terms of the 20th century and understanding that, there’s a very good case—this is why I chose to place my book there as well—there’s a very good case of going to Weimar to see both the ambitions of the nation and where they unfolded after the First World War, as well as the fall of those ideals, because you have the Buchenwald concentration camp just on its doorstep as well.

就20世纪并理解这一点而言，有一个很好的例子——这也是我选择把我的书放在那里的原因——有一个很好的例子可以去魏玛看看这个国家的雄心壮志和它们在第一次世界大战后展开的地方，以及这些理想的破灭，因为布痕瓦尔德集中营就在它的家门口。

To see that side by side, I think, is really quite enlightening in lots of ways to see the high ambition of the era, as well as the fall of those ideals.

我认为，并肩看到这一点，在很多方面确实很有启发性，可以看到这个时代的远大抱负，以及这些理想的衰落。

On what Weimar knew about Buchenwald

魏玛对布痕瓦尔德集中营的了解

The prisoners never get their own train station.

囚犯们从来没有拥有自己的火车站。

The prisoners who get taken there arrive at Weimar train station, very public place with a huge square in front of it.

被带到那里的囚犯抵达魏玛火车站，这是一个非常公共的地方，前面有一个巨大的广场。

They are gathered there and then put onto lorries to be taken up the hill to the camp, so people can see them rounded up.

他们被聚集在那里，然后被装上卡车，运到山上的营地，这样人们就可以看到他们被围捕。

I found various testimonies where people said there was always this excitement when a new “Jew transport,” as people called it, arrived, and they would all rush to the station to see that and just to observe it and to gawp effectively.

我找到了各种证词，人们说，当人们称之为新的“犹太人交通工具”到达时，总是会感到兴奋，他们都会冲到车站去看看，只是为了观察它并有效地凝视它。

People did know what it was and what it did.

人们确实知道它是什么以及它做了什么。

I don’t think that meant they understood the actual horrors that were going on there.

我认为这并不意味着他们了解那里正在发生的实际恐怖。

They did realize obviously that people were dying there, and it initially didn’t have its own crematorium, so the bodies were transported down the hill again and into the Weimar crematorium, which is in the town center.

他们显然意识到那里有人正在死去，而且最初没有自己的火葬场，所以尸体又被运下山，进入位于市中心的魏玛火葬场。

People did know that there was a large amount of deaths going on there as well, but I don’t think that meant really visualizing the absolute sheer horror, the torture, the imprisonment, that kind of stuff, because Weimarers do get taken there when the Americans occupy Weimar at the end of the war, and they decide to show the population what they’d tolerated, what they’d stood by and watched happen.

人们确实知道那里也发生了大量死亡，但我认为这并不意味着真正想象出绝对纯粹的恐怖、酷刑、监禁之类的东西，因为当美国人在战争结束时占领魏玛时，魏玛人确实被带到了那里，他们决定向人们展示他们所容忍的事情，他们所袖手旁观并目睹发生的事情。

There’s genuine shock there when they go up, and they see the actual reality of what was going on there because I don’t think the human mind was even capable of visualizing that if you hadn’t actually seen it.

当他们上升时，他们会感到真正的震惊，他们会看到那里正在发生的事情的真实情况，因为我认为，如果你没有真正看到的话，人类的思维甚至无法想象这一点。

For example, later on when the crematorium actually breaks because they put too many bodies in there—the bodies are emaciated, it doesn’t work properly—the Weimar town council sits down and decides to buy a new crematorium, and they’re discussing why the old one is broken with the engineers.

例如，后来当火葬场因为放了太多尸体而实际上坏了时——尸体都瘦弱了，无法正常工作——魏玛市议会坐下来决定购买一个新的火葬场，他们正在与工程师讨论为什么旧的火葬场坏了。

They tell them it’s because the bodies are unusually emaciated.

他们告诉他们，这是因为尸体异常消瘦。

It’s because it’s not supposed to function at the high rate that you’re using it.

这是因为它不应该以您使用它的高速率运行。

They’re very well aware of what they’re discussing there.

他们非常清楚他们在那里讨论的内容。

These are Weimar civilian politicians who are basically sitting in the town council deciding to buy a new crematorium oven because the old one can’t cope with the amount of bodies that they’re putting through it.

这些是魏玛的文职政客，他们基本上坐在镇议会中，决定购买一台新的火葬场烤箱，因为旧的火葬场无法应付他们要放入的尸体数量。

On why the Weimar Constitution failed

魏玛宪法为何失败

If you just follow down this route, then the fall of the Weimar Republic becomes inevitable.

如果顺着这条路走下去，魏玛共和国的垮台就不可避免了。

If you’re just assuming that there were all these flaws in the constitution already, so therefore it was bound to fail, I don’t think that is the case because when you study this closely, you do see all these kinds of forks in the road as to where things could have gone differently.

如果你只是假设宪法中已经存在所有这些缺陷，那么它必然会失败，我认为情况并非如此，因为当你仔细研究这一点时，你确实会看到所有这些岔路口，事情可能会以不同的方式发展。

I don’t think the system was set up to fail.

我不认为这个系统是为了失败而设计的。

I think these things contributed to the brittle nature of this.

我认为这些事情导致了这个问题的脆弱性。

I think there was perhaps a degree of naivety there in 1919 to think that you could have this ultra-democratic system without any guardrails.

我认为，在 1919 年，认为可以拥有这种没有任何护栏的超民主制度的想法可能有些天真。

When you think how long it took the American Founding Fathers to sit there and really work out every angle, and “What if we got a mad president, what do we put in there to try and protect against that?” Those sorts of things.

当你想到美国开国元勋们花了多长时间坐在那里真正解决各个角度的问题时，“如果我们有一位疯狂的总统怎么办，我们该放什么来试图防止这种情况发生？”诸如此类的事情。

That process is so rushed in 1919 that they just put an ultra-liberal democracy in place, which allows extremists to hijack it.

1919 年的这一过程是如此仓促，以至于他们只是建立了一个极端自由的民主国家，而这却让极端分子可以劫持它。

That is part of the reason.

这是部分原因。

I think the other group of reasons is the circumstances under which the system is born.

我认为另一组原因是制度诞生的环境。

It’s basically born into crisis.

它基本上是在危机中诞生的。

It comes on the back of the First World War and then runs into economic trouble very quickly.

它发生在第一次世界大战之后，然后很快就陷入了经济困境。

That never really goes away despite the so-called gilded years in the middle.

尽管中间有所谓的镀金岁月，但这种感觉永远不会真正消失。

All of that’s propped up by American money, even the stability years of the middle 1920s.

所有这一切都是由美国资金支撑的，即使是 20 年代中期的稳定时期也是如此。

The moment that falls because of the Wall Street crash, you basically get the very economic foundation taken away again.

当华尔街崩盘而崩溃的那一刻，你基本上就会再次失去经济基础。

The subtitle I chose for the book, Life on the Edge of Catastrophe, I’m trying to hint at the fact that that’s how a lot of people felt.

我为这本书选择的副标题是“灾难边缘的生活”，我试图暗示这样一个事实，那就是很多人的感受。

They were literally balancing constantly for this entire time, really, after 1919, on the edge of their own personal catastrophes.

实际上，在 1919 年之后，他们一直在自己个人灾难的边缘不断保持平衡。

It was always unemployment, hyperinflation, trying to get enough food.

总是失业、恶性通货膨胀、试图获得足够的食物。

People were dying of diseases.

人们死于疾病。

There’s the Spanish flu.

有西班牙流感。

There’s tuberculosis.

有结核病。

It’s always something or other.

它总是这样或那样。

People don’t feel that the system is giving them stability.

人们不觉得这个系统给了他们稳定性。

I don’t think there ever really is a feeling that this can really work long term.

我认为从来没有人真正感觉到这可以真正长期发挥作用。

People do, at the slightest whim, think, “Oh, maybe we just need to go back to a system where someone makes the decisions.” The Weimar Republic actually dies in 1930, three years before Hitler comes into power, as a democracy.

人们确实会一时兴起地想，“哦，也许我们只需要回到一个由某人做出决定的系统。”魏玛共和国作为民主国家实际上于 1930 年灭亡，即希特勒上台三年前。

He takes over a system, I think, that’s already given up on being a democracy, even at that point.

我认为，他接管了一个已经放弃民主的制度，即使在那时。

As I say, I could talk about this for two days and still be lining up factors.

正如我所说，我可以谈论这个问题两天，同时仍在整理因素。

It is complex.

这很复杂。

People also often forget that in the First World War, you have the so-called silent dictatorship, which is basically the army running absolutely everything under Hindenburg’s system, from the economy and culture to newspaper output and everything else.

人们也经常忘记，在第一次世界大战中，有所谓的沉默独裁，基本上是军队在兴登堡的体系下管理一切，从经济和文化到报纸产量和其他一切。

Again, that they don’t just suddenly turn that off in 1919.

再次强调，他们不会在 1919 年突然将其关闭。

They do try and make their influence heard ongoingly.

他们确实努力让他们的影响力不断被人们听到。

Then the young Weimar Republic has to make a pact with the military because they defend them effectively against communists and also right-wing Putschers.

然后，年轻的魏玛共和国必须与军队达成协议，因为他们有效地保护军队免受共产党人和右翼政变者的侵害。

They depend on the military in that way as well for security.

他们也以这种方式依赖军队来保证安全。

They do try and build up a new military, but they never go Stalin-style and purge everybody who was there previously.

他们确实尝试建立一支新的军队，但他们从来没有像斯大林那样清除以前在那里的所有人。

They keep the existing elites largely in place, so they inherit an army that isn’t loyal to them, that’s still loyal to the old system.

他们基本上保留了现有的精英，因此他们继承了一支不忠于他们、仍然忠于旧制度的军队。

On Prussia, Bavaria, and where Nazism took root

关于普鲁士、巴伐利亚和纳粹主义扎根的地方

It gets even more complicated than northern Prussian militarism, and then the South comes in with its cultural contributions to Nazism.

它变得比北方普鲁士军国主义更加复杂，然后南方也加入了对纳粹主义的文化贡献。

I think the other thing is that you do have such a splintered system that it allows the Nazis to build little islands of support, and the central state can’t do very much about that.

我认为另一件事是，你确实有一个如此分裂的体系，它允许纳粹建立小支持岛，而中央政府对此无能为力。

If the Bavarian state decides that, actually, they want to allow, say, the Nazi party to reform after Hitler comes out of prison, and they want to allow him to speak again, or even in 1923, it’s partially the Bavarian elites who are plotting against the central state in Berlin as well, then the authority is just not there from Berlin to try and impose anything else on Bavaria.

如果巴伐利亚政府决定，实际上，他们想要允许纳粹党在希特勒出狱后进行改革，并且他们想要允许他再次发言，或者甚至在1923年，部分巴伐利亚精英也在密谋反对柏林的中央政府，那么柏林的权威就不会试图将任何其他东西强加给巴伐利亚。

There’s separatism everywhere.

到处都有分裂主义。

Even when Hitler tries a coup in 1923, and then everywhere the Nazi party gets banned, individual states and regions slowly start lifting those bans again, and the central government can’t do much about that.

即使希特勒在 1923 年试图发动政变，然后纳粹党在各地都被禁止，个别州和地区又慢慢开始解除这些禁令，而中央政府对此也无能为力。

That’s partially the reason why in Weimar, the Nazis also relaunched their movement, because the Thuringian government—the state around Weimar is Thuringia—they also allow the Nazis basically to rebuild from there, because there’s local sympathy for that.

这也是纳粹在魏玛重新发起运动的部分原因，因为图林根政府（魏玛周边的州就是图林根州）也允许纳粹从那里开始重建，因为当地人对此表示同情。

I think it’s that fractured nature of the German state that is the answer, I suppose, to your question, that all the parts contribute to the Nazis being able to build their movement.

我认为德国国家的分裂本质就是你问题的答案，所有这些部分都有助于纳粹能够建立他们的运动。

That creates a lot of grievance and very staunch support for Hitler there, when Hitler basically promises to undo all of that and reunite all of these parts of Germany into one block state again.

这给希特勒带来了很多不满和非常坚定的支持，希特勒基本上承诺撤销所有这些，并将德国所有这些地区再次统一为一个区块国家。

They’re not, as such, averse to Nazism at all.

因此，他们根本不反对纳粹主义。

They basically think that Hitler’s restoring the old Germany as was before the First World War.

他们基本上认为希特勒正在恢复第一次世界大战之前的旧德国。

On rewriting the Treaty of Versailles

论重写凡尔赛条约

On the other side, it wasn’t harsh enough to subdue Germany.

另一方面，它的严厉程度还不足以征服德国。

It wasn’t split up.

它没有被分割。

It was still a whole state.

它仍然是一个完整的状态。

It was still powerful enough to do something with that grievance.

带着那股委屈，它还是有足够的力量做点什么的。

I think, in a way, it would have made more sense to go either way or the other, either make it even harsher and basically create a weak Germany in Central Europe, or go the other way and rebuild from the beginning, as was the strategy after the Second World War.

我认为，在某种程度上，无论走哪条路都更有意义，要么更加严厉，基本上在中欧建立一个软弱的德国，要么走另一条路，从头开始重建，就像第二次世界大战后的战略一样。

This is interesting.

这很有趣。

The lesson that they draw from that is after the Second World War, there is no reparation.

他们从中吸取的教训是，第二次世界大战后，没有任何赔偿。

Some, as such, are slapped onto Germany.

一些国家因此被强加到了德国身上。

They basically say, let’s just take out what’s actually there and then start rebuilding Germany because of the Cold War.

他们基本上说，让我们把实际存在的东西拿出来，然后开始重建德国，因为冷战。

This means that there’s now this quite close relationship between Western parts of Germany and the US and Britain and France, in particular because they very quickly began to see them as allies.

这意味着德国西部地区与美国、英国和法国之间现在存在着相当密切的关系，特别是因为他们很快就开始将它们视为盟友。

I would say a decision just had to be made either way.

我想说，无论哪种方式都必须做出决定。

This compromise treaty, I think, is part of the problem.

我认为，这个妥协条约是问题的一部分。

On historical antisemitism in Germany

论德国历史上的反犹太主义

I think partially it’s because antisemitism tends to always be a symptom of a society in crisis; the worse it gets, the worse antisemitism gets.

我认为部分原因是反犹太主义往往是社会陷入危机的症状。情况越糟糕，反犹太主义就越严重。

That’s partially, I think, an explanation for that is that particularly because it’s economic grievances, people then look for scapegoats for the Great Depression, but also hyperinflation.

我认为，部分原因是，特别是因为经济不满，人们会为大萧条和恶性通货膨胀寻找替罪羊。

They see that the Jewish Germans who are largely in middle-class and upper-class social environments, that they’re still doing reasonably well for themselves.

他们看到，犹太德国人主要生活在中产阶级和上层阶级的社会环境中，他们自己的生活仍然相当不错。

This narrative of they’re exploiting the poverty of the others is particularly easy to exploit in a situation like that.

在这种情况下，他们利用他人贫困的说法尤其容易被利用。

A journalist put it quite well recently on a different reason, but he said, “To be German means to walk down every cul-de-sac to the end.” The idea that there’s antisemitism already latent in society, then it becomes Hitler’s own obsession.

一位记者最近以不同的理由说得很好，但他说：“作为德国人就意味着要走每条死胡同到底。”社会中已经潜伏着反犹太主义的想法，然后就成为希特勒自己的痴迷。

People are working toward the Führer, as Ian Kershaw, the historian, puts it.

正如历史学家伊恩·克肖（Ian Kershaw）所说，人们正在向元首努力。

They’re finding more and more extreme ways of dealing with things that are already latent in society, and the system that Hitler sets up allows this to happen.

他们正在寻找越来越多的极端方式来处理社会中已经潜伏的事物，而希特勒建立的体系允许这种情况发生。

Rather than saying, you sit there with your antisemitic grievances and prejudices in your head, or you talk about it in the pub, somebody will say, “Why don’t we do something about it?” because that’s what Hitler wants.

有人会说：“我们为什么不对此采取行动呢？”因为这就是希特勒想要的。

Then they need to be heard amongst the field of competitors, and they find the most radical and the most extreme solution and take that forward.

然后他们需要在竞争对手领域中被听到，他们找到最激进和最极端的解决方案并向前推进。

This is something that spirals very quickly out of control.

这是一种很快就会失控的事情。

Most historians now agree that there wasn’t a master plan that led to Auschwitz, basically, in the 1920s within the Nazi movement, despite the rhetoric that you see there.

大多数历史学家现在都同意，基本上，在 1920 年代的纳粹运动中，并没有一个导致奥斯维辛集中营的总体计划，尽管你在那里看到了一些言论。

It’s bit by bit, the escalation that you see is due to the radicalism of the Nazi movement and the way that people follow orders and go along with it.

你看到的事态升级是一点一滴的，是由于纳粹运动的激进主义以及人们听从命令和服从的方式造成的。

On Hitler's citizenship problem

关于希特勒的公民身份问题

He himself always argued that he always felt German.

他本人总是辩称，他总是感觉自己是德国人。

He was from the far Western part of Austria by the German border, where he was born and where he grew up, in Braunau am Inn, which is literally just the other side of the border.

他来自奥地利最西部靠近德国边境的地方，他出生和长大的地方是因河畔布劳瑙，实际上就在边境的另一边。

He argued that actually his accent is Bavarian.

他辩称实际上他的口音是巴伐利亚口音。

It does have that because it is so close to the German borders.

它确实有这一点，因为它非常靠近德国边境。

It’s that sort of being Catholic, being Alpine, being from that region.

这就是天主教徒、阿尔卑斯山人、来自那个地区的感觉。

It’s not an obvious distinction, I would say, in the way that people think of it now.

我想说，按照人们现在的想法，这并不是一个明显的区别。

Then people also forget that in Austria there was a huge movement in the 1920s because Austria, basically after the First World War, was split from its own empire.

然后人们也忘记了奥地利在 1920 年代发生了一场巨大的运动，因为奥地利基本上在第一次世界大战后从自己的帝国中分裂出来。

It became the small German-Austrian rump state, and it suddenly feared for its own existence and survival because it was so small, having previously been an empire.

它成为德奥残余小国，突然对自己的存在和生存感到担忧，因为它太小了，以前是一个帝国。

There’s a huge movement, even from left-leaning and progressive Austrians, toward a unification process with Germany in the 1920s, which is forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles.

20 年代，即使是左倾和进步的奥地利人，也掀起了一场巨大的运动，要求与德国进行统一进程，而这是《凡尔赛条约》所禁止的。

They’re not allowed to do that, but the movement exists.

他们不被允许这样做，但运动确实存在。

It’s not an unnatural position for Hitler to say, or he’s certainly not alone in that, for Hitler to say, “Actually, I’m German.

对于希特勒来说，这并不是一个不自然的立场，或者他肯定不是唯一一个这样说的人，希特勒说：“实际上，我是德国人。

We’re all Germans because we’re Austrians, and we should be part of this.” Look at the 19th century, when there were debates about a greater Germany that included Austria at that point.

我们都是德国人，因为我们是奥地利人，我们应该成为其中的一部分。”看看19世纪，当时存在关于建立一个包括奥地利在内的大德国的争论。

He’s harking back to that, and he’s saying, “Actually, we shouldn’t be in two separate countries.” This works for many Germans.

他回想起这一点，他说：“实际上，我们不应该生活在两个不同的国家。”这对许多德国人来说都是有效的。

You actually see a much higher than average proportion of Austrians serving in concentration camps as well as guards, which is an interesting development.

实际上，你会发现在集中营和看守中服役的奥地利人的比例远高于平均水平，这是一个有趣的发展。

There’s almost a more fervent, more extremist type of Nazism going on in Austria.

奥地利正在上演一种更狂热、更极端的纳粹主义。

They almost feel like they have a point to prove that they want to be part of the same system.

他们几乎觉得自己有理由证明自己想成为同一系统的一部分。

You see the same with Kristallnacht, with the pogroms against Jews in 1938.

1938 年水晶之夜针对犹太人的大屠杀也是如此。

They take a much more violent turn in Austria where, in Germany, it’s mostly shops and synagogues and so on that are being attacked, although people also die and get murdered and arrested.

他们在奥地利采取了更加暴力的转变，在德国，主要是商店和犹太教堂等受到袭击，尽管也有人死亡、被谋杀和逮捕。

In Austria, it’s very much targeted at the people themselves, at Jews, because of this emotionality of wanting to prove that you’re part of this.

在奥地利，它主要针对人民本身，针对犹太人，因为这种想要证明自己是其中一部分的情感。

It’s not as odd as it looks today when we’re looking at two very distinct states there, basically.

基本上，当我们看到那里的两个截然不同的状态时，这并不像今天看起来那么奇怪。

That isn’t really the case in the 1920s where there’s still arguments about some form of unification of Germany and Austria, which Hitler, of course, ends up doing.

20 年代的情况并非如此，当时仍然存在关于德国和奥地利某种形式统一的争论，当然，希特勒最终还是这么做了。

On Weimar's best cultural creations

论魏玛最好的文化创作

I think that’s certainly something about the 1920s that’s incredibly precious, this willingness to just break the boundaries, try again, start from scratch, because the world that people had come from and that they knew had gone.

我认为这在 20 年代确实是非常珍贵的，这种打破界限、再次尝试、从头开始的意愿，因为人们来自的、他们所知道的世界已经消失了。

They knew that the First World War was an absolute turning point.

他们知道第一次世界大战是一个绝对的转折点。

It wiped the slate clean, and you could start again.

它把一切都擦干净了，你可以重新开始。

Because of hyperinflation and all those things, people also felt they had nothing to lose.

由于恶性通货膨胀和所有这些事情，人们也觉得自己没有什么可失去的。

There wasn’t this fear now when you think, “Oh, can I really say this?

现在当你想：“哦，我真的可以这么说吗？

Can I really do this?

我真的可以这样做吗？

Will I get canceled?

我会被取消吗？

What will it do to my career?” People were almost hedonistic in a way.

这会对我的职业生涯产生什么影响？”人们在某种程度上几乎是享乐主义的。

They would just go out and try things because of this absolute dizzying state where there are no certainties, where there’s nothing to cling on to.

他们只是出去尝试一些事情，因为这种绝对令人眼花缭乱的状态，没有确定性，没有什么可以坚持的。

That’s unique, I would say, to that time period.

我想说，这对于那个时期来说是独一无二的。

It created this absolutely dazzling cultural scene that you see in the 1920s, particularly in Berlin, of course.

它创造了你在 20 年代看到的绝对令人眼花缭乱的文化景观，当然，尤其是在柏林。

On the most underrated German thinker

关于最被低估的德国思想家

Because my brain’s permanently stuck in the 19th and 20th century, I’m going to pick someone from there.

因为我的大脑永远停留在 19 世纪和 20 世纪，所以我要从那里挑选一个人。

I think Gustav Stresemann, who was the foreign minister in the Weimar Republic.

我认为古斯塔夫·施特雷泽曼（Gustav Stresemann）是魏玛共和国的外交部长。

As such, he was more than just a politician.

因此，他不仅仅是一名政治家。

He really had a big idea as to where he would take Germany, how he would tackle the problems.

他对于将德国带向何方以及如何解决这些问题确实有一个伟大的想法。

I think he got a long way with that.

我认为他在这方面还有很长的路要走。

In the 1920s, he was really rehabilitating Germany and the world.

1920年代，他真正在复兴德国和世界。

He was presenting an image of a country that was recovering, restoring its morality.

他展示了一个正在复苏、正在恢复道德的国家的形象。

People believed him.

人们相信他。

He did rebuild Germany’s position in international treaties and so on.

他确实重建了德国在国际条约等中的地位。

He had an idea as to how to take the economy forward.

他有一个关于如何推动经济发展的想法。

Then he died just before the Wall Street crash happened.

然后他就在华尔街崩盘发生前去世了。

Forever, in my head, there’s been this what-if moment.

在我的脑海里，永远存在着这个假设时刻。

How would he have dealt with that?

他会如何处理这个问题呢？

Because he had solved seemingly unsolvable problems before in terms of dealing with hyperinflation and those kinds of things.

因为他之前在应对恶性通货膨胀之类的问题上解决过一些看似无法解决的问题。

To me, it’s this idea of he almost saved Germany, and therefore Europe and the world, from this catastrophe that was befalling it later on.

对我来说，正是这个想法让他几乎拯救了德国，从而拯救了欧洲和世界，使其免遭后来降临的这场灾难。

That tantalizing moment of, had he not died there and then, could he have done something about it, perhaps makes him underrated because he never got the opportunity to.

那个诱人的时刻，如果他没有死在那里，然后他是否可以做点什么，也许会让他被低估，因为他从来没有机会这样做。

We might be living in a completely different world today if he had survived.

如果他幸存下来，我们今天可能生活在一个完全不同的世界。

On improving Weimar

论改进魏玛

I would be a bit braver with that and try and show visitors, of whom there are still many that come to Weimar, a town that is comfortable with its own history and goes back not just to these cultural stars that it’s harbored and fostered, but actually a more nuanced picture across the board.

我会更勇敢一点，尝试向游客展示，其中仍然有很多人来到魏玛，这座小镇对自己的历史感到满意，不仅可以追溯到它所庇护和培养的文化明星，而且实际上是一幅更细致的图画。

Trying to show the people who come there basically Weimar across the ages, rather than just focusing on its glory days, on the golden years of what people call the classical Weimar, basically because it’s a very artificial place in many ways.

试图向来到这里的人们展示魏玛的各个时代，而不是仅仅关注它的辉煌岁月，关注人们所谓的古典魏玛的黄金岁月，主要是因为它在很多方面都是一个非常人造的地方。

You go there, it’s super neat, super clean.

你去那里，超级整洁，超级干净。

It looks after itself.

它照顾自己。

It’s very confident about these visitors coming in and out because it’s been so used to that, but it shows the world a very narrow image of itself, namely that of the so-called classical era when Goethe and Schiller lived and worked there.

它对这些进出的游客非常有信心，因为它已经习惯了，但它向世界展示了一个非常狭隘的自身形象，即歌德和席勒在那里生活和工作的所谓古典时代。

That means that people tend to go with whatever the working classes are doing.

这意味着人们倾向于跟随工人阶级所做的任何事情。

They’re currently voting for AfD, so does Thuringia.

他们目前投票给德国选择党，图林根州也是如此。

Weimar itself is very middle-class.

魏玛本身就是非常中产阶级的。

Not just middle class, but a particular branch of the middle class.

不仅仅是中产阶级，而是中产阶级的一个特定分支。

It’s the educated, the professorial types, the intellectuals who move there.

搬到那里的是受过教育的教授型知识分子。

You end up with quite a small-C conservative culture there that sets it out a little bit from the rest of the region there.

最终你会发现那里有一种相当小C的保守文化，与该地区的其他地方有一点不同。

The numbers are a little bit lower.

数字有点低。

On Germany's economic malaise

论德国经济低迷

If you run a part of the economy that relies on stable and affordable energy, then there isn’t an obvious solution.

如果你经营的经济部分依赖于稳定且负担得起的能源，那么就没有明显的解决方案。

This isn’t a temporary crisis that you just have to sit out and hope that it’ll go away.

这不是一场暂时的危机，你只需袖手旁观并希望它会消失。

Actually, the structural things that are wrong with the German economy don’t seem to be going anywhere.

事实上，德国经济的结构性问题似乎并没有得到解决。

I’m quite pessimistic at this point, but I’m hopeful that the election results that are coming in thick and fast now, and you begin to really see that in politicians, that it’s beginning to sink in just how pessimistic other people are and how fed up they are, that this is now hopefully leading to some reforms.

在这一点上我相当悲观，但我希望选举结果很快就会出来，你开始真正在政治家身上看到这一点，他们开始明白其他人是多么悲观，他们是多么厌倦，这现在有望导致一些改革。

There’s certainly talk of that at the moment in Germany.

目前德国肯定有这样的讨论。

Because these things survived two world wars and the complete moral and economic destruction that the Second World War brought, and came back, bouncing back afterwards with the economic miracle in West Germany, I think people thought that they would always just carry on running, no matter what you do with them.

因为这些东西在两次世界大战以及第二次世界大战带来的彻底的道德和经济破坏中幸存下来，并且随着西德的经济奇迹而卷土重来，我认为人们认为它们总是会继续运行，无论你对它们做什么。

You don’t have to look after the system.

您不必照顾系统。

You don’t have to reform it.

你不必改革它。

You don’t have to modernize it.

您不必对其进行现代化改造。

As a result of that, I think people didn’t really think, “How do we get this or how do we adapt this thing to the 21st century?” When you look at things like startups, say, in Germany, the rate is much, much lower there than it is in comparable countries because the innovation is lacking.

因此，我认为人们并没有真正思考过，“我们如何得到这个，或者我们如何使这个东西适应 21 世纪？”当你观察像德国这样的初创企业时，你会发现那里的比率比同类国家低得多，因为缺乏创新。

People just thought, let’s run with the existing thing itself as well, without having the nimble-footedness that made the system great in the first place.

人们只是想，让我们也用现有的东西本身来运行吧，而不是首先拥有使系统变得伟大的敏捷性。

That innovation of the 19th century, that zeal, I think has gone to a large extent.

我认为 19 世纪的创新和热情已经在很大程度上消失了。

On living in Britain as a German historian

作为一名德国历史学家在英国生活

Then, also, Germany has got a bit of a habit—I suppose like the US because it’s quite large, quite dominant for where it is—it tends to not look across its own borders.

此外，德国也有一个习惯——我想就像美国一样，因为它面积很大，在当地占据主导地位——它往往不会跨越自己的边界。

It tends to interpret its issues within its own ecosystem and thereby doesn’t see that other countries either have the same problems and have dealt with them in some way that might actually be useful to look at, or that the problem that they have is distinctly German.

它倾向于在自己的生态系统内解释其问题，因此没有看到其他国家也有同样的问题，并且以某种可能实际上有用的方式处理这些问题，或者他们所面临的问题显然是德国的。

Say, for example, when the AfD began to rise, the far-right party in Germany, people immediately said, “Oh, this is an East German problem,” because it’s much larger in the East than it is in the West.

举例来说，当德国极右翼政党选择党（AfD）开始崛起时，人们立即说，“哦，这是东德的问题”，因为这个问题在东方比在西方要严重得多。

They ignored it for a long time.

他们很长一段时间都忽略了它。

They basically looked at that and said, “Well, this is just East Germans not understanding how democracy works.

他们基本上看了之后说：“好吧，这只是东德人不理解民主是如何运作的。

Oh, well, they’re only a fifth of the population, doesn’t matter.”

哦，好吧，他们只占总人口的五分之一，没关系。”

Had they looked a little bit further, they could have seen what’s going on in France, in Britain, in Eastern Europe, in the US, and in other places.

如果他们看得更远一点，他们就能看到法国、英国、东欧、美国和其他地方正在发生的事情。

They could have seen that, actually, the patterns there are not dissimilar.

他们本来可以看到，实际上，那里的图案并没有什么不同。

You have basically a working-class population that is deeply unhappy about things and is trying to find a way of expressing that.

基本上，工人阶级人口对事情深感不满，并试图找到一种表达这种不满的方式。

They could have addressed it, perhaps a little bit earlier, and actually taken it seriously.

他们本可以早点解决这个问题，并且认真对待它。

That, I feel, living outside of Germany, but still close enough and having relatives and friends and people there, and I go there a lot as well.

我觉得，虽然住在德国境外，但仍然足够近，那里有亲戚、朋友和人们，而且我也经常去那里。

I have enough of a foot in there to follow events, but I feel I’m far enough away as well to have an outsider’s perspective on these things.

我有足够的脚踏实地去跟踪事件，但我觉得我也距离足够远，可以从局外人的角度来看待这些事情。

For someone like me to go to Bavaria, say, it feels like you’re in a foreign country.

对于像我这样的人来说，去巴伐利亚，感觉就像在异国他乡。

You don’t really know the social conventions.

你根本不了解社会习俗。

They’re very conservative, very Catholic still, a very different culture compared to the northern half.

他们非常保守，仍然非常天主教徒，与北半部相比，他们的文化非常不同。

Definitely in the north, I always feel more comfortable the further north I get.

绝对是在北方，越往北我总是感觉更舒服。

I like being in Hamburg, for example.

例如，我喜欢待在汉堡。

I like being by the coast.

我喜欢在海边。

People are very calm and often a bit aloof as well, but I quite like that.

人们都很冷静，也常常有点冷漠，但我很喜欢这样。

A very calm, to me, quite polite, cautious way of being, rather than the sort of brash culture that is associated with other parts of Germany.

对我来说，这是一种非常平静、非常有礼貌、谨慎的生活方式，而不是德国其他地区那种傲慢的文化。

I’d probably end up somewhere along the coast.

我可能最终会去沿海的某个地方。

It’s also, in terms of the geography, if you look at it, the north is quite flat.

而且从地理上看，北方还是很平坦的。

Then, once you get to Thuringia and Hesse and areas like that in the center of Germany, it becomes more mountainous, which is also associated with different types of cultures.

然后到了图林根州、黑森州等德国中部的地区，山地就多了，这也和不同类型的文化有关。

It’s that foresty, mountainous image that people have of Germany that starts about halfway down and then becomes more pronounced the further south you get until you get to the Alps as well.

人们对德国的印象就是森林多山，从半山腰开始，越往南越明显，直到到达阿尔卑斯山。

I would say, yes, probably the top half to two-thirds.

我想说，是的，可能是上半部分到三分之二。

It’s a bit larger than half, I would say, in the top.

我想说，它比顶部的一半大一点。

Yes.

是的。

I’m bouncing around different ideas there at the moment.

我现在正在思考不同的想法。

Sorry to be a bit guarded still about that.

抱歉，对此我还是有点谨慎。

It’s just that whilst I’m still having these ideas swirling around, the moment you say anything, people come back and say, “Yes, do that,” or “Don’t do that.” You end up being influenced by that.

只是当我仍然有这些想法时，当你说什么的那一刻，人们会回来说，“是的，这样做”或“不要那样做”。你最终会受到它的影响。

I tend to make a decision at some point and then release it.

我倾向于在某个时刻做出决定，然后发布它。